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I was at the hospital and had to pay $4/hr, so I got 2 hrs. next thing I know the doctor is taking forever and there's no way I can leave to put more money in (stall # based parking ticket system). I'm stuck waiting to find out if I'll get a ticket. they should have systems where you take a ticket and pay on your way out since nobody really knows how long they'll need to stay at a hospital. this was at richmond general in bc.

As a patient, I strongly disagree. Have a parking system where you get a card when you come in that you swipe when you leave to pay. If you're a patient, they swipe the card inside and you get a big discount. That will keep the non-patients (or visitors) out.

For many, taking transit to the hospital isn't a realistic option. Chemotherapy patients who are severely immunocompromised can't just hop on a crowded subway car. And if you live any distance from the hospital, a taxi will be even more expensive than parking.

If they're comping your parking for being a patient or visitor, then they're subsidizing private vehicles at the expense of everyone else.

I would be more sympathetic if parking all day ($19) were the largest cost of my most recent hospital experiences instead of a sling for a broken arm ($30) or a fiberglass cast for that broken arm ($65), when these last two are actual medical expenses.

You don't understand the concept of "subsidizing". If you are paying the break even cost of your parking spot, rather than allowing for profit on top of that, then no one is subsidizing you. That would imply that you weren't paying the break even cost of your spot.

Similar experience for me the other night at a nearby emergency room. Having to go out and fill the meter constantly, and piss around timing it so you're not losing out on half of what you're paying for by reseting the time on the stall, would be great not to have to deal with.

It encourages abandoning the people you've driven to emergency.

I can only imagine how shitty it must be for someone with a chronic condition that needs regular medical care. People in that situation should probably get a free parking pass or reimbursement, so they're not being gouged insane amounts of money.

That said, I'm annoyed with the article's focus on families, as if they're the only ones affected by this.

I used to have to go to the hospital twice a month. Luckily my nurse knew that times were tight. She gave me a comp ticket every time, making miserable hospital visits just that much more bearable.
I'm not sure if all hospitals do that, but it never hurts to ask if they have something similar.

You have to justify the need. You cannot deduct parking fees at a hospital parkade just to visit something else in the vicinity. Similarly, if you need to visit the ER rather than a walkin, you shouldn't be driving - someone else should be driving you.

The system where you pay as you leave makes so much sense that it's obvious they're deliberately not doing it just to squeeze as much as they can out of you. Why would these assholes ever cut you some slack when they can make you pay for 2 hours and stick a parking ticket on top of that?

The closest hospital to me has a main lot with this sort of pay-model. They also have a way more convenient back parking lot that needs you to pay ahead of time. It's quite the dilemma. Even bigger problem is both of these lots are usually full during the day so if you get there at a busy time you're stuck parking 3 blocks away on a side street in not a great area.

The hospital I work at uses such a system. Though the hourly rate is a bit more expensive. I think it's somewhere around $6/hour, though it caps out after a couple hours so even if you spend eight hours waiting in the urgent you're not going to be paying out the nose for parking.

And for people who plan to be coming and going a lot, there are weekly and monthly passes available too.

Downside, unfortunately, is that most of the staff is stuck using satellite parking lots and have to take shuttle buses to the hospital. Works okay most of the time but in winter, waiting for that bus can be a pain.

At the hospital in our city, if you have to go to emerg, it's usually just cheaper and easier to not pay anything and risk getting a $15 parking ticket. My mom was recently there for something, and she was there for about 4 hours. Well she paid for 2 hours of parking, then didn't want to go out to pay more and risk being called for. So she ended up with a parking ticket as well. In the end I think it's just easier to not pay and risk getting a ticket. If there was a system where you could get a ticket and pay on the way out, that would make much more sense to me. Who knows how long they are going to wait at emerg for?

I've only ever seen systems where you get a ticket when you park and then pay when you leave at hospital parking areas. The only place I know doing pay-in-advance is parking on the street which is handled by the city. Things have probably changes since, but they do exist.

The local hospital we prefer to go to has an area of free parking on the street

Yeah, I know. And it could obviously be a heck of a lot worse if I lived where a hospital visit would be measured in thousands of dollars instead of 10 or 20...

Still, it would be great if we didn't have to wait around so long. It would help mitigate our medical system's biggest weakness/PITA. I'm hoping that sometime soon they'll create a system where you reserve a spot in line, then they call you or send you a text when there's only 3 people left ahead of you.

There's no technical hurdles to cross, it would be a pretty simple thing to set up. You're already tracked on arrival and discharge. You'd still end up waiting but only for an hour instead of 4 or more. You could get some sleep instead of waiting in the ER all night, afraid to fall asleep in case they call your name. That would be my jetpack moment, we'd officially be living in the future.

...then I'd move on to the next trivial thing to bitch about

Seriously, why does it seem like the government is so afraid of adopting new technology? I just gave one minor example, but how about an electronic record-keeping system so that you can move a prescription from one pharmacy to another the same as you can log in to a bank account at two different computers? It's my prescription, not the pharmacy's. Also, doctors at different places should know what medications you're taking, what allergies you have, what your test results are, what allergies you have, etc.

I got an x-ray at one clinic, got referred to another, and they needed me to come back again a week later because my x-ray from the original clinic hadn't arrived yet. Via mail. Even email would be silly, there should be some kind of large-scale network. In any case, these inefficiencies shouldn't exist anymore... I've bumped into this kind of thing a bunch of times, so how much time is being wasted? How many hours are people sitting in waiting rooms, how many doctors are working long hours they shouldn't have to, and how much money do those hours cost?

I'm not a "let the free market decide!"-type person, but it's taking way too long for public sector stuff to adopt the things the private sector's been using for the better part of a decade. I can log in to my Steam account anywhere on the planet and have access to all my stuff, but two doctors in the same city have no idea what the other is doing to me and two pharmacies on opposite sides of the street act like my prescriptions are a trade secret.

Agreed that modernization would be nice. Even if they just gave you the light up coaster things restaurants used when you were in the ER, that would be really great.

I always thought that a sweet and not-too-difficult thing to build into the calendar software of medical offices would be something that automatically texts patients 30 minutes before their appointment to let them know if the doctor is behind schedule- it could be made automatic so that it takes no extra work to use.

A few reasons modernisation is so slow: they just are not given the money to modernise. Legislation and litigation make them very concerned about privacy (which, for example, complicates sharing records between pharmacies). They need to use rock solid, proven technology because if it fails that is really, really bad- they can't use the cutting edge, they need to be at least a few years behind. They use a lot of legacy systems (example: I tagged along with a buddy and helped him fix an MRI maching- it brought me back to the 90's as I was using Windows 95): tying into or upgrading all of these legacy systems is difficult and expensive. Which brings me back to the first and biggest reason: they just are not given the money to modernise. Which is stupid, because modernisation would undoubtedly save money in the long run.

The text message if the doctor is late would not changed your experience one iota- if he is late, you just wouldn't get a heads up that he was late. Just like you get no heads up now if he is late. Actually, your experience would probably improve because there wouldn't be as many people in the waiting room (making the waiting room more pleasant, and less likely to give you germs).

I certainly don't think we should make cell phones mandatory to get care. But most of the population has cell phones. Where it is possible to use them to increase convenience at low cost, there is no reason not to.

It isn't really at low cost though. It means a hospital or clinic has to have texting capability - where landlines are already in place. It requires a staff member to keep track of your appointment and the queue and keep you updated. Not a lot of time for one patient maybe, but multiply that over how many patients in a day, a week or month? It's a lot of man-hours.

I don't think your idea is terrible, and maybe it's a matter of time before it could work really well. I just think there's more to it than you may have considered.

You can send texts over the internet for free. Every reception computer is already hooked up to the internet, so they don't need to "add texting ability." And I suggested building it into the appointment software- which is already keeping track of who the doctor is seeing and who is next- so it is all automatic. It would take zero extra work.

But that was just one idea out of hundreds of ways we could modernise.

I'm a Canadian living in the US and the hospital here has free valet parking. They also don't charge the patient (you get a pass on your way out after your appointment) and if you're admitted, you get one long-term pass for a family member. The parking situation was seriously amazing.

I know there are problems with the US system etc etc, but I spent a month as an inpatient, and my husband not having to pay for parking when he visited me everyday seriously saved us several hundred dollars.

We only paid our $200 copay (plus another $200 for the baby that I eventually had), but this is because we have excellent health insurance. The full bill was closer to $850K (me and the baby combined), and the negotiated rate the insurance company paid was something like two thirds of that.

Makes me glad to live here. My daughter was born 6 weeks early. I don't know what would have happened to us had she been born in the U.S. I was working 2jobs - but neither was the type to offer benefits...

Well, we are lucky that we are Canadian, and we definitely wouldn't have moved here if we weren't being well taken care of. Luckily if you're pregnant (or a child) pretty well all the states have programs that will provide some sort of coverage, but I really don't know much about the details.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a strong supporter of public healthcare, but from a selfish standpoint (as someone with really good insurance) there are perks to the system here.

but from a selfish standpoint (as someone with really good insurance) there are perks to the system here.

I think that, in a nutshell, is a big obstacle to changing healthcare in the U.S.. The people with the power to make the changes largely don't have any incentive to since they benefit from a system that prioritizes the wealthy.

The U.S. certainly offers the best medical care money can buy. It just takes a lot of money ;).

It isn't an assumption. It is part of his job duties to make sure the emergency lane stays clear and to assist getting preggo women into wheelchairs. Source: I talk to security guards.

' hi I'm bleeding my cars in the way can you park it ?'. Is not a ridiculous request. The only answer that security guard will say in that situation is gimme the keys. You and the other 13 up votes need to stop being awkward penguins and talk to some humans.

In Halifax, NS I saw the budget for parking and it took in a whopping amount of money. To make it worse they tore down a playground to add more parking. The only playground around.

Also the private company the city uses skulk around the hospitals as they know they can get lots of people who let the meters run out while they are in the hospitals such as children's emergency (and its 8 free parking spots). Damn predators.

Agreed, the way parking is charged for is terrible. How on earth should you have to guess how long you'll be in the hospital, with no idea if they're running on time or even what the doctor's going to tell you?

As a haligonian I can say our hospital parking is done by taking a ticket when arriving and then using said ticket to pay on the way out for however long you were there. There is no need to run out the fill the meter (unless you choose to park at a metered spot near the hospital)

Obviously, we should raise some taxes. Preferably on the poor, so we don't remove it from investment so that small businesses can continue to grow. I'm thinking, tax beer and cigarettes, leave high end liquors and wine alone. Anything over 60$ say.

While we're at it, lets privatize all that hospital parking! That way when we pay for the fees with all those increased taxes we can know one more person will be buying $60 bottles of liquor. It'll be great for the economy!

Only Manhattan and SF. For example, Phoenix has twice the population as Vancouver but has rock bottom housing prices. Boston metro area median price: $367,700. Toronto is $800,000.

So has an american, if you have $400,000 you can own a huge house in a nice city, and if you ever get a huge medical problem, and dont have insurance, then you will need to pay $100,000s. In Canada, if you have $400,000 you can buy a 1br condo. And if you ever get a huge medical problem, and you can live long enough to survive the massive years long wait lists, you get that paid for.

Personally, i'd rather live in a house with a yard and take my chances (or just buy private insurance, like i already do for my wife) than be stuck in a 1br condo forever.

Unfortunately I spent way too much time at several American hospitals during the three years my wife was being treated for cancer. Only one of them had free parking, the others all had valet parking at $5/all day (except one in a major city that was $12/all day).

As a Security Guard who works at a Hospital with paid parking, Don't blame the Hospitals blame the Government for cutting funding to Health Care. The Hospitals need to make money somehow. Also it is funny how paid parking can do this, but the stupidity i witness on a daily basis kills my faith in humanity.

They pay the company to install the parking system, After it is installed the hospital makes the profits. The company will come in for maintenance and thats about it, there is most likely an online account with the company as for technical support. But I'd assume the hospital keeps 95% or the profits.

That seems unlikely. If they had the money they would just install their own parking system. I'm pretty their contract out a private company to build it and then the parking fees go toward covering the cost of the structure as well as some profits for the company/hospital.

I do hate parking fees at hospitals. It seems like a punishment. That being said, it has its uses...I grew up in a small town, and our hospital used the parking fees to fund things like their physiotherapy department (people who had no health coverage could get a few free physio sessions that way). It's not like the doctors are using the parking fees to buy themselves Johnny Walker and cigars.

If I'm visiting someone in the hospital it's usually with my family. 4 people x $3 each x both directions is $24, plus parking costs at the park and ride. Not really any better than parking at the hospital.

As a european foreign student in Quebec I just want to say that your healthcare system is kinda fucked up to me . In my country you pay 5 for medical acts, 2 for drugs, and 50 for surgeries.

Our tuition fees in Medical School is also very very low so Doctors, Dentists don't graduate with any debt.

So if you go to the emergency room (5) , get an MRI (5), then stay three nights (15) and two drugs (4). You pay (6x5)+2= 34 euros.

It's not free (we do it ON PURPOSE we don't want a 100% free system so people feel they actually pay something) but it is very very cheap so everybody can afford it. Here in Montreal I see some people wait more than 20 hours or 30 hours. I'm just shocked. Yet Quebecois tell me "I shouldn't complain, it's better than the US".

I don't know if this is the same in other provinces or if this is "typical Quebec"

So I have two things to say for you guys :

1-I love you..

2-I gotta be honest, you should seriously STOP fucking comparing your self to the united states (like some do in this thread) when it come to health, public transport, crime, torture, or ANYTHING actually.

Yeah, well it is not all sunshine and lollipops. To book a full physical with my GP, I have to plan one year out - If someone cancels theirs, I may get lucky. To get a short appointment for prescription renewal, I called two weeks ago, Middle of April... but the secretary suggested I can request an emergency update with my pharmacy for a one month extension if I run out beforehand.

If you need emergency services, it is there. If you want to maintain your health, good luck with that.

But do they have alternative entrances for the Emerg department? Or perhaps there was no emerg department? The hospitals in my city have no gate to the ER entrance and you're given a ticket inside the Triage area to cover your parking. Whereas the entrances are gated for hospitals that have no ER because there is no emergencies coming their way. Ambulances coming through those entrances are just transferring patients to other clinics/units.

The health centre I go to in Oshawa has paid parking. Want to pick up my multiple prescriptions, which usually run out at different times? Have to pay for parking. I'm only going to be there for 3 minutes, tops, but hey, I'm going to have to pay the minimum rate, which is something like $4.

I don't drive but was feeling like being a nice person after my grandson was born. I stepped out for a ciggy and had to get hella away from builiding. I decided to feed the meters in the hospital parking lot when a security guard approached me and told me I'm not allowed to do that.

I'm in New York, but I've had issues with paying parking fees as well.

My oldest daughter was born 1lb, 9oz. If you saw her today you'd never know but at that time, as you can imagine, things were rough. Long story short, she had to spend three months in the hospital. Both my wife and I would visit every day. Me leaving from work? $4. My wife goes to visit? Another $4. Every day! Mind you, we're not rich!

Thank goodness someone finally told us that we could buy a monthly ticket, but it was still $60 and we had to coordinate and go in one car, which meant me coming home first. It was definitely an expense that made things difficult.

In Mississauga (near Toronto) one of the busiest hospitals Credit Valley, people just park across the way at Erin Mills mall. But there's no pathway between them so the grass and top soil is permantly torn up. And they have to cross at one of the busiest intersections (Erin Mills and Eglinton Ave), which is dangerous given the flow of people. There have been a lot of accidents there because of that.

The other (larger) hospital The Trillium people just illegally park anywhere they can and it causes a lot of problems for nearby stores and shops. Or they sit in the Emergency Entrance for hours (more often new comers) with their whole family and little kids running around playing in the emergency lanes.

Sadly, this is a symptom of the way that Mississauga built itself to be dependent on the car. When I lived in East York and was getting physio for a dislocation, I just walked to the hospital. It's going to be a long and slow process for Mississauga to cure itself of that particular disease. Though stop-gaps like a crossing between the mall and the hospital would probably help.

Yup agreed. We could have helped the situation by going for a subway in the 70s or 80s. Hazel really screwed us on that one. Transit as it is today outside of Toronto is really not an option, a 15 minute drive can be an hour and a half slog or more even in good weather. It's not really a problem walking across the street but they just need to accept that people are going to do it, pave the walk way and think about a way to make it more safe for pedestrians. But that would eat into parking revenue.

It's especially fun when it's one in the morning you've been waiting forever and feeling like crap and go to scan the ticket to get out and bamn, the damn machine is broken and there is not a tech in sight, and when you try to tell the security gaurd after looking around for another hour you are only curtly told well you must not have paid, even when you still have your goddamned receipt. It's not till four in the morning when five people are lined at the gate trying to get out that they realise, oh shit something must be up and finally let you go home.

Heathcare isn't free. It is provided at no direct cost to the consumer because it is deemed to be in the public's best interest. There is not a parallel argument to be made on moral or ethical grounds to provide someone with 100% subsidized parking.

There is not such thing as gouging for parking. Nobody has a monopoly for parking, so the laws of supply and demand apply.

More people want to park means that either supply has to increase or prices have to rise to quell demand, or people need to find alternatives for travel. Parking isn't a right; it is not in the Charter, and there is nothing about providing it as part of the mandate for the healthcare system.

It presents a barrier to health care. People who are living on the margins won't be able to afford to drive themselves in the hospital. Before you say that a car is a luxury, many Canadians live in small towns where bus service sucks or is non-existent and people have to have a vehicle to get around. Having to plug a meter or pay parking is going to negatively impact these people, and that's simply not fair.

Welcome to Canada. If you don't want museums, parks, hospitals, libraries, colleges, universities and the post office to make cold hard cash you had better move to the states.

Wait, what? I'm confused.

/s

Yes I undersand most of these places are charging high rates to recover costs, but it becomes slightly ridiculous when schools charge $400 a semester and hospitals charge $8 an hour for parking. The post office is so expensive I can't think of the last time I used it and the national museums are expensive and outdated.

This is just wrong. I recently had to go to the hospital for a few tests and was surprised at how much I had to pay for parking. $10 each time for a few hours of parking. I don't mind that much because I am a generally healthy person and I don't have to go often but just imagine those families that have to go every day for cancer treatment and so on. It's unfair that these families, who are already going through hell, have to subsidize parking for everyone else.

At my local hospital it's $17/day. It pisses me off that most people who are visiting hospitals are not having the best day of their lives and then they get gouged because the hospital has bought up all available parking lots in the area.

Argh, I had to visit someone in hospital (Toronto Western) a bunch of times last year, between paying for parking and paying the FUCKING TICKETS HOLY SHIT THEY HAVE A GUY MUST JUST HANG AROUND THERE ALL DAY TICKETING HOSPITAL VISITORS I ended up being out quite a bit of cash. Annoying - frankly, the placement and wording of some of those signs on the streets around the hospital, you almost think they're trying to catch you out.

EDIT: Luckily I can (I suppose) afford this sort of thing. But fucking hell man if they're getting me they're getting a lot of less careful folks too. Might be simpler just to provide adequate on-site parking, which to Toronto Western's credit they seem to be doing, there was a multistorey lot under construction when I was having that trouble.

Where do you suppose the money to build more parking should come from? It seems to me that you want it taken out of the patient care fund, so you can store your private property on someone else's land for free.

I can understand the need to make money, but the rates are ridiculous. I had to go to McMaster hospital recently in Hamilton to get an aircast. It was a short appointment, I was in an out in 15 minutes. It cost me $6 for a half hour of parking.

I think the solution for people with appointments is a flat rate. I wouldn't mind paying $5 to park for an appointment, the problem of course is that specialists are often overbooked and running late so it's easy to hit the daily maximum. I once paid $12 to park for a ten minute specialist appointment.

It's pretty obviously you who needs to get some perspective since you have not considered the very serious damage this can do. Not sure why you're bringing Americans into it, you might as well say "Africans would scoff!". Didn't realize the fact that some people have things worse means we are suddenly incapable of discussing the problems in our lives.